Over and Over
by TheFutilitarian
Summary: They swear it's a one night stand.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** Please don't sue me. Or if the cast of Pitch Perfect were to have to turn up for a hearing, do.

So, I've progressed from 150 to 500 odd words. This is a bit like going from black&white to colour overnight. God forbid, I might actually break the 1k barrier before May.

This is meant to be a multi-chapter story. Of course, that means absolutely nothing to me: I write and abandon at the whim of my capricious muse.

For those who have read _Waiting_, you know a bit how this is going to go (though it isn't in reverse): I swear this shouldn't be anywhere near as traumatic-after all, Mirandy are unique in their angst.

Finally, fuck you for not doing paragraph breaks for some reason: I've had to use the break line, which sucks-I hope you're happy.

* * *

They didn't really speak.

Many years later, she accepted that if they had, she would have walked away without a second's glance.

Maybe she would have regretted it.

But it was not what she needed.

Not back then.

* * *

Oddly, it was not the silence that drew her. Hard to find any in the middle of a thumping bass. Unlike loneliness. But that was why she was here. Because she wanted to fit in. Because for one moment she wanted to feel a connection; a slender strand to one day guide her through the looking glass.

* * *

It was a bit like wind chimes.

Persistent.

Annoying.

Creating discord in the middle of a perfectly tuned beat.

_Relax_. Even as she chanted the familiar mantra in her head, she could feel the muscles in her cheeks tighten, her teeth clenching together even as her hand rose in a valiant attempt to cut out the noise.

* * *

It never reached its destination, caught frozen in mid-motion by the redhead's fluid spin.

That smile could pardon a lot of sins.

She accepted _that_ in moments.

Aubrey didn't do religious. She didn't do fanciful either. Her father always told her truth was economic and precise, not open to interpretation.

But no curt words she knew could explain away this brightness. The way it made the redhead's face glow, almost from within. The way it warmed the ice blue of her eyes, melting what could have been a glacier to a summer's ocean. The way it tinged her skin so pliant that the very hand that still lingered awkwardly between them was filled with an altogether different longing.

* * *

Familiar tickle rose with a welcome discomfort, the movement to leave an ingrained habit.

"Don't."

Someone jostled Aubrey, making her reach out for the sticky surface off the bar, temporarily breaking her focus.

Nuances.

Those she had yet to fully understand.

Don't... _touch me?_

Don't... _talk to me?_

Don't... _look at me?_

* * *

"Don't go."

She hadn't been wrong about the warmth. It pulsed. She couldn't be sure to whose beat.

_Her_ heart.

Her own.

The music.

Maybe to the measured rhythm of the foreign silence in her head.

The steadfast clasp around her wrist loosened to slide (caress) along her palm. "I am Chloe."

* * *

"Not—with me."

* * *

The tranquil aqua briefly brewed into a storm. Watching the redhead's irises darken, Aubrey almost reconsidered. She should have. She did. "I-"

"Okay."

Had never been good enough before.

It was tears in the bedroom closet when she was five.

Wretching in the bathroom when she was eleven.

Tasting the copper on the inside of her cheek when she was seventeen.

"Okay." The reiteration from lips so earnest that she allowed herself to wish that they could wash away the bitterness that one word always trailed in its wake.

* * *

With a jerky nod, Aubrey swallowed down feelings bursting to get out, plastering a practiced smile on her face.

Anxiety.

Panic.

Fear.

And later in the middle of the night, her back flush against the wall as she dissected Chloe's loose-limbed, slumbering sprawl—envy.

* * *

"Thank you", dressed again, she bent to whisper as the morning sunlight gilded auburn strands a fiery halo; _I'm Aubrey_ locked behind impenetrable bars.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** I am so bored of writing these.

**Author's note:** So this is an odd little mish mash of what flittered through my head in online conversations (that I am so very fond of), and whilst there is an overarching continuity to the story, it will continue to remain a potential mixture of styles.

Which is how I like it in the first place; I am far more of a stylistic than a grammatically correct writer.

Sue me.

* * *

"You've carried on so long,

You couldn't stop if you tried it.

You've built your wall so high

That no-one could climb it—"

**Labyrinth feat. Emilie Sands**

* * *

Her life has become a tapestry of Chloes, the rest so rote that when she tries to pinpoint the differences, her head starts to ache with the echo of her father's words.

6th April Chloe: proving that the right redhead can definitely pull off pink.

13th April Chloe: destroying any buried notions of unlucky Fridays.

20th April Chloe: the most mind-blowing orgasm of her life.

* * *

28th April Chloe: "Let's go grab some early breakfast, there's this diner—"

The casual morphs into a threat mid-sentence.

* * *

There are no breakfast tapestries. No walks on the beach. No running through the humid Atlanta rain.

This is why there isn't even any mornings after.

She caught herself one day (January 26th—it rained), mechanical, a second cup of coffee being stirred; hand caught reaching for the sugar, when she remembered she didn't know how Chloe took her coffee.

Didn't care.

_Shouldn't _care_. _

Always honest to a fault.

* * *

"The burns on your hand aren't consistent with an accident, Ms Posen."

She conjured up her father's face at graduation, let her mind shade disdain on her face. "What are you implying?"

"The burns are too severe. A spill would have triggered a reflex. Something—or," a measured pause, "someone—stopped it taking place."

"You're mistaken." Her mother's airy whimsy: an altogether different reproach.

A loaded silence this time—probably just thisside of a minute.

"Perhaps you should let someone else make the coffee in the future."

* * *

Who?

Or is it whom?

Uncertainty of that sears worse than any molten lava blistering her hand, the memory of deftly muffled screams as liquid scorched a calculated path.

"No permanent damage, I would hope, but—"

—it's not her hope.

A badge. An honour. A reminder.

_You're stronger than this, Aubrey._

* * *

"I am fine."

* * *

"I know _that_." Past and present seamlessly combine; the sterile white of St Joseph's fading into the teasing warmth of pale blue. "But I'm not. You've worn me out." An overly exaggerated eyebrow wiggle, followed by a dramatic flop. "I. am. hungry. feed. me,"each word punctuated with peppered kisses across Aubrey's palm.

* * *

The tingling feeling has to be the pulling of the still too tender skin, bathed as it is by Chloe's exhuberance; _far too gently_, the treacherous voice whispers in her head.

The immediate response: a staccato, "Feed yourself."

Fact.

This is just about sex.

Conversation is already an indulgence.

She doesn't—

Doesn't—

Doesn't—

Care when the blue dulls to a forlorn hue.

* * *

"Maybe next week, huh, Josephine?"

* * *

She hates the naming game.

Josephine de Beauharnais?

Josephine Balsamo?

Knowing Chloe's tastes, probably Joey from Dawson's Creek. (the fact that Chloe still talks about a show that hasn't aired for years is something Aubrey finds too disturbing to address)

* * *

_No_ hovers on her tongue—but there is something else. Something dark and desperate, clawing its way to freedom. From where, she doesn't know.

She times its upward journey.

10.

11.

12.

Five seconds quicker than the last time.

The day that Chloe tastes it in the clash of lips will be the end.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** How is it possible to forget how to upload a chapter from week to week? Honestly.

**Author's note:** A few people will know I am not a big fan of Chloe's cannon portrayal as I feel she comes across as at best a trope, and at worst a caricature. As a result, it's been fairly difficult to find her 'voice', but I wanted to try. It goes without saying this whole fic is AU: there is no Barden, no a capella, no Chaubrey brotp. I suppose this is a 'what if' neither had met each other at that point of their lives, so in some ways it's OOC, though I am sticking to my headcannon for both characters as per the movie.

The ending is a little abrupt-I didn't want to extrapolate too much, and the right final sentence just wouldn't present itself.

I suppose I should dedicate this to Jack E. Peace / ourpathunwinding, though clearly she has me beat about 50 stories to 1, so a 1300 word update seems a somewhat meagre offering in exchange. Ah well, hopefully it's the thought that counts.

* * *

"We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be."

Patrick Rothfuss, _The Name of the Wind_

* * *

The elevator pings between the whirr of the well-worn CD player trying to skip to the next track. Eventually the first strains of the song relieve the silence.

Elevator to hospital room: _Gangasta's Paradise_.

Hospital room to snack machine: _Geek Stink Breath_.

Time between Jamie's coughing fits: _Smash It Up_.

Each step, each moment, each event in Chloe's life is measured through her music—it's better that way, she tells herself. It's better than being her parents: counting down each second through the ticking of the clock.

"Hey, bug."

"Hey."

Jamie doesn't look so good, and she busies herself with removing her headphones, so he doesn't see how much her hands shake. She is eight now. She is not a baby. Not anymore.

"Come up here," he pats the bed; a feeble movement.

Chloe doesn't need to be told twice, grabbing the nearest chair and dragging it so that she can use it to climb on top of her brother's bed.

"I love you. You know that—right?"

She may be eight but she already knows no good conversations start with that.

"I guess," she shrugs, forcing herself to watch the streaks of rain rolling down the window.

"Chlo—Chloe, look at me."

"WHAT?"

"That." She feels cool fingers barely brush her hand. They feel weird—clammy—and everything in her wants to snatch her hand away. "That." Silence. "This isn't you."

"How would you even know?"

"Okay. I deserve that. I know I wasn't around as much—before. But the clothes? The music? And you're angry." Another silence. "You're always so angry."

The pain in her lip is better than the sting of tears. "Sorry." It comes out wooden. Like when Dad says it's going to be okay. He'll know she's lying straight away. "I'll do better."

"Stop it. I am not Mom and Dad. You don't have to pretend. Not for me. Never for me."

The tears are now as difficult to hold back as her words. "And when you're gone?!" She wants to stop. She does. "What then?" The metallic taste of blood is in her mouth now. But it's not enough. Nothing is enough. "I'm not you." Somehow that tastes worse than the blood. "They hate me." The next words are a whisper because she's so scared; so scared to voice them because what if they're true? "They wish it was me."

"Take that back." It is the tone of lazy summer afternoons. When he wouldn't take her to the beach with his friends. When they called her a cry baby; and when she cried when Jamie would shush her and promise her an ice cream cone if she wouldn't tell. "You'll never say that ever again."

The unusually harsh tone turns her head.

He's blurry, but when she sniffs and knuckles her tears away, there are tears in his own eyes. She feels something in her chest. Like something tearing, a hot rush of some alien feeling rising into her hasn't cried. Not once. Not when they told him. Not when Mom broke down; harsh gulping sobs the likes of which Chloe had never heard before. Not when Chloe started crying because she didn't get it. Not death—that she sort of understood. But why it was happening to them. She'd been good. Jamie was good. He was the most popular boy in high school. He had a girlfriend. He was going to college. He was going to save the world. It wasn't fair. IT WASN'T FAIR.

"I know." It wasn't till his next words that she understood she must have spoken out loud. "Life isn't fair, Chloe. But you can't give up, okay?" A sob. She wasn't sure who's. "They're going to need you. They all need you. Don't shut yourself away. Don't shut them away. For me? Please?"

"I—"

"Please…"

"I'm—" The tubes were in the way but she didn't care. She needed him to know she meant it. She needed him to feel it. "I'm sorry." His tears were as salty as her own where they mixed between pressed cheeks. "I will do better. I will be better. I promise."

"You're already good enough. You've always been good enough. Don't let anyone tell you different."

* * *

It's never been more difficult to feel that than this morning.

"_Flowers?" It's curt. More of an accusation than a question._

"_I just—I just wanted to give you something. Six months. It's a big deal, you know?"_

"_Six months of one night stands." Chloe can't decipher if the words are simple fact or cruelty._

"_I know, but—"_

"_This isn't a relationship. I thought I made that clear." There's an acrid desperation to the kiss—hard and punishing—though Chloe sometimes wonders if she's really the recipient._

"_I just thought—"_

"_I don't—" pay you think lingers in the air, but Aubrey is never crass enough to say it. She just arranges the myriad of Friday night hotel rooms, penthouse suites, and lonely breakfast morning afters. "want it. I want what we have." Her voice softens, lowers seductively with practiced ease. She's probably an amazing lawyer—a fleeting thought; as most bittersweet—it's not likely that Chloe will ever find out._

"_Well, I want you." The flirtatious smile slides onto Chloe's lips with equal ease. "Come here. I have another surprise for you…"_

"_For serious?" Mixed in with condemnation is something else. Something Aubrey thinks she hides under the covers of the darkness. _

_Hope. _

_It's barely a glimmer. Quicksilver. Elusive. Unwelcome._

_That is one thing they have in common. _

But perhaps they are both doomed to disappointment.

"Should I," the pause is loaded with nerves, the maid clearly worrying about how to ask the question. "throw the flowers out with the rest, m'am? It's just… theyaresobeautiful, and I volunteer at a local church, and they'd love to—"

"Take them." The image of Chloe's individually selected stems shoved carelessly into a trashcan is imprinted behind her eyelids. "Someone should enjoy them."

The maid's response is lost in the litany of _it isn't fairs_.

It isn't fair that Jamie died.

It isn't fair that he made her promise.

It isn't fair that he hadn't explained what it meant not to shut yourself away.

"Um, m'am. I am sorry, I know it's not my place but…"

"Yes?" It also isn't fair to take her anger out on someone trying to do their job.

"I just wanted to say, in case, you know, it's important, because these look expensive, and if I'd paid all that money, I'd hate to think someone stiffed me or something, I mean I know these cost probably like more than $300, and I've got this thing where…"

"So do I, it's called a lack of time," and it's angry and aching and horrible and honest, and everything she hasn't been for almost 20 years. "I am sorry," unbidden, tears spring into her eyes. "Please, I didn't mean that. I—"

"It's okay. We've all been there. Not like anyone hasn't dated a dick or two in their life. At least yours takes you somewhere fancy, you know? That's gotta count for something, right. So, uh, the flowers—he break your heart?"

_She broke her own, Aubrey would argue._ "Something like that."

"You going to see him again?"

"I doubt it." This is the end. It has to be.

"Well, you're probably better off." The maid shuffles awkwardly from foot to foot, as if not sure what else to say. "But if you do—tell him to check before he pays. If he can count as high as twenty four, that is. Actually," a sly smile and a wink, "maybe don't tell him, yeah?"

"What do you mean?" It is the whisper of the eight year old, too scared to hear the answer.

"Well, I'm guessing Romeo paid for two dozen, but there's only twenty three."


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** These are so 1990s.

**Author's Note:** This chapter hates me with a fire of a thousand suns. And honestly, I kind of wish that it would die and go to hell. So yes, suffice to say, it's definitely not my best work. But-it's still 1700 more words than I had yesterday, so there's that.

I should dedicate this to Jack E. Peace if only because reading this is likely to do absolutely nothing to make her cold any better.

* * *

~How can you see into my eyes like open doors?

Leading you down into my core where I've become so numb

Without a soul my spirit's sleeping somewhere cold

Until you find it there and lead it back home~

Bring Me To Life, Evanescence

* * *

She loves that this unknown woman has destroyed her hatred of the night. No, not unknown—just unnamed. The difference strikes Chloe as important. Is twenty five too late to understand that walls can be transparent? That maybe those barriers hold far more honesty than anything she hides within herself; the reason that she tries to sleep those dark corners of her life away?

Her gaze sculpts a familiar trail down the contours of her lover's face. The blonde sleeps hard. No twitches. No sighs. No carelessly mumbled secrets crack the softness of her lips.

No dreams.

_Too frivolous_, her flight of fancy whispers.

_Too tired_, argues her pragmatic self.

Chloe's fingers twitch; torn between the urge to smooth away the ever present tightness from the corners of that mouth, and the reason she's been up, night after night—defending, accusing, fighting in the inky blackness—the Pandora's box residing on the bedside table.

_What's in a name?_

_Bloody Shakespeare, what did he know?_

_She trusts you._

_But she'll never find out._

The customary swirl of thoughts bleeds into ever-changing landscapes: a kaleidoscope of right and wrong. You're better than this, you're only human, please don't do this, but it's only normal; and above them all the treacherous, _what if she leaves it there for you to find_?

The groan of the mattress rings echoes like a blast; Chloe's tread a slew of gunshots: each one primed to shatter. Even her heart is out of sync: erratic stop and start a discord to her ear; divergent to the smoothness she imagined. Her lips mouth Bruno Mars—a current favourite; a childhood habit. An involuntary shiver ghosts her frame when 'will she come back no-one knows' has her reach the doorway of the bathroom; the only place from which the sliver of the light won't spill into the bedroom. But it's a full moon tonight—nature conspiring to help her? As implausible as it may seem, a solitary comfort to take solace in. Well, maybe that and the solid block of ice against her back that is the radiator.

Her fingers fumble at the clasp. Once. Twice. Three times; before she traps them in the vice between her knees, forced to take even breaths to still her shaking hands. Perhaps this is a sign. But she's come way too far.

Too late to battle demons of her conscience.

The content is as frugal as its owner. Crisp bills, lined up like soldiers (ironed out?): a silly, instantly discarded, train of thought. What looks like bank cards, credit cards, store loyalty; all the standard trappings of success. Tucked in, arranged by type, tops lined up in perfect parallel: even breathing on such order seems a travesty. Yet it's that same precision that will aid her, that neatness which will yield the one thing that she yearns to know. A see-through sheath. Of course. She would consider it a waste of time removing it.

Aubrey Posen.

It is bitter on her tongue.

* * *

Morning is an unwelcome friend, bathing her bleary eyes in bright Atlanta sunlight. There is drool at the corner of her mouth, and a damp patch on the pillow, and her back is screaming that she'll never walk again. She burrows closer into Jamie—they must've let her stay with him last night. That's nice. The next thought not so much—_why_? It is the icy coldness of the lake behind their house; the fear is swift and sharp: stealing her breath until it feels like she is drowning, the darkness pressing in around her. Fearful, hesitant, she trains her gaze, focusing on his ribcage. . Good. There. The puff of air exhales her lips the same time as the rise and fall of Jamie's chest.

Her stomach grumbles. Breakfast. But she's got severe case of bedhead, and—she glances across, yep, there are streaks of black mascara on the pristine white. Shoot. Another gurgle makes her mind up. Do sick people really care that she looks like some sort of sick racoon? And other people—well— they're just going to have to deal.

Sliding out of bed, she sticks the player inbetween her knees while her hands tame dyed black hair into something which doesn't resemble a crow's nest. It's really sort of pointless without a brush, but whatever, she promised that she'd try, so—

"Get me a Snickers?"

Bloody Jamie and his candy.

"Okay. But don't tell Mum and Dad."

The blare of Guns'n'Roses walks her to the snack machine; she'll need something upbeat now, like that stupid Ace of Base song that all the girls in her class are gaga over. _All That She Wants_ is not to be a stereotype (that's a word her mother uses, and it doesn't sound nice)—is that really too much to ask? And not to wear pink, and talk about boys, like all the time, because jeez, seriously yuck, and—

Oomf. She staggers backward, grabbing at the nearest surface—the wall—to steady herself.

"Watch where you're going!"

The anger boils to the surface just as soon as her eyes land on the offending object that ran into her. Or she ran into. But no chance she's ever going to acknowledge that.

She is exactly like those stupid Barbie girls in school. Ruffled pink dress. Not a hair out of place. Blonde. Thin. Just fucking perfect. (they've told her off for swearing but they can't read her mind)

"I'm—sorry. Are you—okay?" There's a stiffness in the tone, a robotic quality; one Chloe's used to hearing in adult voices.

She makes a show of checking, running her hands up and down her body. She's fine. But it won't hurt to make Little Miss Perfect sweat. Of course then she makes the stupid mistake of looking into the blonde's face, and there's something there—some fear that instinctively feels out of place. At worst Chloe has a couple of bruises, and at worst if the situations were reversed she'd get an earful from her parents about being more careful—but the tremble of her lips that the girl is trying so hard to hide by pressing them together, the pleading in her eyes, it's—weird… and it makes Chloe feel sad, like maybe she shouldn't play pretend for once.

"Yeah, it's okay. See, I'm fine." She pirouettes to prove her point. "Takes more than that to take me down." Her lips stretch so hard it almost hurts. "You're, like, half my size."

Apparently that's not the right thing to say. "I am the right height and weight ratio for my age."

"Oh. So I am fat then?" Chloe teases.

"No. No—of course not. I didn't mean to make you think that. You're fine. You're nice. And I like your necklace. It's very…"

Chloe bites the inside of her cheek, her whole frame almost shaking with the urge not to laugh. She raises her eyebrow, encouraging the girl to continue.

"…uh, very… uh, very… uh, modern chic?"

Chloe doesn't know what that means, and doesn't really care because the helpless, uncertain expression the blonde is sporting is too much, and short of biting through her cheek, the vibrations need an escape, and suddenly it's all so stupid—her clothes, her hair, the skull and crossbones around her neck; and then there's no holding it back—and it's a little too uncontrolled, and a little too loud, and definitely far too strong for the occasion, but that's okay, because in that moment it's clear to Chloe that this is happy, that she'll feel this way again; that it isn't wrong to laugh.

The girl's face slackens though she doesn't smile. In fact, her lips barely move; Chloe wonders if she even knows how. But her eyes—oh her eyes—it's like sunshine after the dullness of the rain, like that moment when the light's just right, and it forms a rainbow in the sky. The warmth is instant, spreading through her chest like the first sip of chocolate after a snowball fight, like the heat of the fireplace on a freezing morning. And it's nice. Better than nice actually. Kind of amazing. And maybe the pink isn't so bad after all, okay maybe not great on a ging—redhead, but well, there's other colours. And I Saw The Sign is kind of okay (her mother listens to it on a loop), and boys—nope, still ugh, she's probably going to need to sloooowly work her way up to those, but still, all things considered, not—

"What—exactly—is going on—here?"

Chloe blinks.

Blinks once again just to be sure.

The blonde has grown an inch, her posture rigid as a board, arms down by her sides, her eyes a newly unwrapped Etch-A-Sketch.

"Nothing, sir."

"Nothing is straight to the bathroom and back as discussed. Nothing isn't candy that will rot your teeth. Nothing isn't idle chit chat when you have studying to do. Nothing isn't the god awful racket you are making. Didn't I teach you that hospitals mean sick people? Do you even care? Jesus, as if it's not enough that I have to deal with your mother's inability to take the right amount of medication as per clearly labelled instructions, now I have to deal with you as well, and—this."

Chloe knows that's a reference to her.

His stare burns: not anger, not frustration, not disappointment; he looks right through her like she isn't even there. Like she doesn't exist. And that's a thousand times worse. No-one has ever looked at her like that, like she isn't even worth seeing. Too fat, too ugly, too stupid, but never simply—_not_. It makes her itch to stamp her feet, throw something, kick him—make him notice her—but all she does is glare, the trapped rage shining in her eyes until he turns away.

"Come along."

The blonde is nearly yanked off her feet, the tightening of her lips the only sign of the man's brute grip.

Chloe takes a step towards her, ready to do battle.

A quick shake of the head, a mouthed _it's okay_, a flare of colour in behind the greyness.

And a solemn vow she won't make a soul feel the same.


End file.
